The conservation evidence gap in ecological mitigation

 




What is ecological mitigation?

In the UK, the legal protection of species means that, if an infrastructure development is set to impact local species populations, developers must minimise this impact and compensate for any disturbance or loss of habitat. Hence, ecological mitigation measures, usually recommended by consultants during ecological impact assessment, have become a keystone policy tool intended to resolve the conflict between development and species conservation. Given the UK governments recent commitments to building 300,000 new homes per year over the next ten years, these measures are vitally important. However, despite their importance and widespread application, practitioners (Hill & Arnold, 2012) have previously indicated there may be limited evidence for the effectiveness of ecological mitigation.

so writes Bronwen Hunter, a PhD student at the University of Sussex who recently completed her MSc at Imperial College, London, where she conducted research on the evidence for ecological mitigation measures. Her current work focuses on the application of text-analysis tools to global analyses of wildlife exploitation see the blog here conservation evidence

The recently published paper (Hunter et al. 2021), we aimed to investigate this evidence gap by identifying the protected species mitigation measures used in developments, exploring the guidance that informed them and, using the Conservation Evidence database, evaluating the scientific evidence for their effectiveness. In reviewing the ecological reports associated with a sample of 50 housing developments, we found 446 measures recommended in total, comprising 65 different mitigation measures relating to eight taxa – over half of these measures have not been empirically evaluated and only 13 are assessed as beneficial or likely beneficial.

Comments

Post a Comment

Please share your thoughts

Most viewed

Heritage Trees part 2: street trees.

Image
  Oaks and maples Cambridge Gardens 2019   Street trees can often be the most beautiful objects in our streets. They are important to their communities as well as having environmental benefits. They are a living history in our landscape and can have particular connections. They may be fragments of a previous landscape incorporated into a modern street scene, such as the oaks at Cambridge Gardens once  part of the Duke of Cambridge's estate.  A great read with information on how to research street trees is a  History of Street Trees by Dr. M. Johnston.  London plane trees CRE 1976 Beech tree, Chesterton Terrace 1976 Studies show that the difference in local tree cover can reflect the various socio-economic groups. In Victorian times middle class areas were planted with many street trees or had higher quality front gardens than working class districts; now referred to as 'green equity'. It can be demonstrated by looking at old photos of the seven roads that were
Read more

Fishing the Hogsmill

Image
Fly-fishing the Hogsmill   It is interesting to see the river from a different perspective: the Hogsmill is popular with anglers at this time of year; although it is unusual to see someone fly- fishing. A chub has just been caught on bread and it looks a good size. Trout are sometimes seen in the Hogsmill and can sit in the weir notch by the school. Our own Richard Jefferies in his book 'Nature Near London'  remarked on the Hogsmill trout as far up as Tolworth Hall Bridge (now the A240). chub    This fish was carefully unhooked and orientated in the swim where it soon finds it way - probably to the next father and son - sitting further upstream. These anglers have caught the 'ghost' koi within the last two weeks and appear to be the second successful pair to catch the pond-escapee in the last few days. Ghost koi are a British invention. They were produced by accident in the early 80’s when a farmer allowed a mirror carp and a koi to spawn together. The offspring
Read more

Seething Wells: they've done it again

Image
The last day of May, I went to see if I could find the black redstart that had been widely reported, no luck but it will turn up again on one of the old buildings. The lush vegetation was looking beautiful between the Filter Beds at Seething Wells. I made a note of the breeding birds: goldfinches twinkling away, blue tits gathering food, sand martins flying over the FB's (only two this year unfortunately) moorhens and some scruffy little coot chicks entangled in the algal blooms.   Proud parents were showing off their four Canada chicks; they can cover a lot of ground in a short space of time they were soon feeding on water pepper and bistort gleaned from  the ziggerat-sided basins. A song thrush sang from the wharf alongside greenfinches as well as the seasonal chiff chaff; although this year all numbers are down, reflecting not only the topsy-turvy Spring but also the continued tumble in insect numbers (even seed eating birds are dependent on insects to feed their young).
Read more